


Graphite Gray

by nfra3711



Category: Tennis no Oujisama | Prince of Tennis
Genre: Alternate Universe - Flower Shop, Flirting, M/M, poor boy can't keep up, vague flirting is what seiichi finds works best on kuranosuke
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-27
Updated: 2015-12-27
Packaged: 2018-05-09 17:34:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5549333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nfra3711/pseuds/nfra3711
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yukimura has taken a liking to draw Shiraishi- while he's at work. Shiraishi wishes Yukimura has a better sense of timing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Graphite Gray

Shiraishi could feel the pair of eyes watching him; when he was stocking the shelves. When he was watering the flowers in the pots standing around the entrance of the store. When he was helping a customer choosing the best combinations of kinds and colors of flowers for a special occasion. When he was manning the cashier. Even when he turned around to check the back storage- those eyes- the same pair of eyes every time, was there, watching him, his every move.

Now, it wasn’t exactly normal to feel that way all day, if anything, it was unnecessarily frightening, and Shiraishi had no need of unwanted attention. He would’ve told someone about it, or reported it as a case of harassment. He would have, of course. It was just the right thing to do.

If only he wasn’t aware of who exactly it was that kept following him.  

“Hold still, will you!?”

A frustrated groan escaped the blonde’s lips. It was nearing closing time and he only had a few pots of seedlings to handle and a few boxes to store. Yet his wonderfully demanding stalker wouldn’t let him move an inch from where he was standing- behind his work station- where he had been for the last half an hour, a completed order of flower arrangements sitting idly in front of him.

“Yukimura,” he sighed, purposely making it sound expendably dramatic. “I have to go home.”

The only other person in the room, a certain young man with unusual navy colored hair, sat on a folding chair next to the desk- with a leg elegantly draped over the other, a sketchbook across his lap, and a graphite pencil clasped tightly between his fingers. He shot a sharp look at Shiraishi, before switching his gaze back unto the sketchbook, brows furrowing in concentration.

“Not yet.”

“How much longer will this take?” Shiraishi glanced at the clock hanging on the wall. He’d have to close the store in exactly twenty minutes or his employer would probably throw a fit at him the next day.

Yukimura graced the question with nothing but a barely audible hum. He held the rim of his sketchbook carefully as he smudged the paper’s surface with his other hand, before scribbling some more with his pencil.

Shiraishi had had enough. He wasn’t going so far as to continuing to humor his odd friend if it’d cost a crack in his otherwise flawless job reputation. He put the tools he was using into a box and shoved it under the desk, walking away from it towards the stack of cardboard boxes sitting in the corner of the store waiting for his attention.

“Ah!” Yukimura raised his voice, a clear annoyance in his tone. “You moved!”

“Give me a break, Yukimura.” Shiraishi snapped, picking up the boxes and walked to the storage door. “You’ve been doing that all day!”

“Not true.” Despite his whining, Shiraishi could feel his eyes still watching him, and the proceeding firm, patting sound of graphite on paper was enough to tell him that Yukimura was still drawing. “I’ve been here for barely an hour.”

“You were hiding behind the back shelf.” The taller boy replied as he emerged back from the door, walking back across the store to take another stack of boxes. Really, did Yukimura actually think he hadn’t noticed?

The dark haired boy paused, the patting of the graphite halted for a moment.

“So you noticed.”

“Of course I did.” Shiraishi sighed again. “A few customers even walked up to me telling me that I should probably report you for _suspicious activities_.”

“Ah.” Yukimura paused. Truly, he should start considering that stealth wasn’t his best forte. “Well, you know how it goes.” He looked up at his friend and flashed him a sweet grin. “You should never get in the way of artistic musing.”

“That’s not my intention.” Shiraishi remarked back. He really still had to work his way around resisting that smug yet strangely dear face- the face Yukimura made when he knew he could get what he wanted. “But you’re making it difficult for me to do my job.”

“I didn’t tell you stop working.” Yukimura hummed playfully as he flipped back a couple of pages of his sketchbook, a thin smile visible across his lips. “It’s you while on the job that I wanted to draw anyway.”

He lifted the sketchbook and turned it over at Shiraishi, showing him a page of the book that had a few major figures in black and white and harmonious shades of graphite gray, scribbles and smudges somehow filling the empty gaps on the paper diligently.

Shiraishi had only found out about Yukimura’s fine art skills recently, but it was already always such a mind blowing moment for him whenever he was presented with his drawings- they were gentle, delicate, the touch of his pencils and paintbrushes grazed kindly against the unyielding surface of the canvas, yet there was something deep, passionate, encapsulated by strength lying finely below the tender strokes that made the piece- a quaint representation of the artist himself, if Shiraishi dared say so.

But it was always another experience when Yukimura had specifically chosen him as his model. While Shiraishi wasn’t entirely certain of Yukimura’s reasoning on being so wonderstruck that he could quite literally sit in the corner of the shop creeping on him for the sake of painting him all day, he found it that he was looking at an entirely new side of Yukimura; this Yukimura complained much less and sassed him much less. The time was spent less on friendly chats and plant investigations and more on a stunned, comfortable silence shared between the two and occasional eye contact that somehow always made Shiraishi’s stomach felt that it could flip over and his heart beating a note faster. Perhaps he was just too careless to notice before, but Yukimura had very intense eyes. And there were already too many instances when Shiraishi was sure his knees were shaking and his face was flushing when Yukimura gazed at him.

And it was happening, right now, as Yukimura proudly showed him the results of the day’s stalking and trailing and hunting and tons of creative hard work. It was otherworldly to see himself, his own figure and his own face with his own facial features that he was sure looked way more picturesque than they were in reality- among sketches of flowers, so many of blooms and blossoms framing pictures of his face and hands and fingers that he could swear he was looking at a picture of some sort of a flower garden; only this one had him in it, and it only served to make him blush and send involuntary sheepish smiles to his face.

“You’re blushing,” Yukimura unhelpfully pointed out, another grin surfacing on his face. “And giggling.”

“Am I? I mean—“ Shiraishi quickly cleared his throat. “I’m not.”

“Mhm.” The blue haired then stood up, attentively closed his sketchbook and slid it neatly into his shoulder bag. “You should probably wrap up now.”

Shiraishi paused, frantically turning his head to look at the clock again, only to pitiably realize that he barely had ten minutes to close the store.

Yukimura chuckled as the other boy made a long yelp and started rushing from one corner of the store to another, picking up boxes and pots and flowers. He grabbed him by the shoulder to stop him as he passed, gleaming a smile that Shiraishi was sure meant short of mere kindness.

“I bought a new canvas the other day, and I think tonight’s a good night to put it to use, don’t you agree?”

Shiraishi blinked, staring at him curiously. Yukimura patted his shoulder. “It’s a shame that I have no one to model for me.”

Never had Shiraishi rushed to finish a job as fast as he did.


End file.
